Tuesday, June 26, 2007

In the last few weeks, more Shiite killed more Sunni, more Palestinians were killed by Jews, Hamas and Fatah killed each other some more, some Whites hated some Blacks, some Blacks hated some Whites, and fundamentalists killed many seculars and non-seculars alike.

It's really all so . . . tragic. Not just because of lives lost, but also because all of this is based largely on differentiating themselves from the "Other." You're different . . . BANG!

Nevermind that biologically we're all alike. We all have the same ancestor. I heard a blurb about the Human Genome Project on today's Writer's Almanac: that everyone on Earth - all 6 billion of us - can trace our ancestor back 7,000 generations.

" "Had you entered any village on Earth in around 3,000 B.C., the first person you would have met would probably be your ancestor," statistician Jotun Hein of England's Oxford University marveled.

It also means that all of us have ancestors of every color and creed. Every Palestinian suicide bomber has Jews in his past. Every Sunni Muslim in Iraq is descended from at least one Shiite. And every Klansman's family has African roots."

Many cultures pride themselves in honoring their ancestors. Let's practice what we preach.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

I am so tired of half-assed American political leadership. I have never felt so politically disenfranchised in my life. Or rather, I have never felt so utterly tired of America. Of course, I lay blame all of this on Bush and his cronies. Terrorism - the spread of Al-Qaedaesque terrorist organizations - has expanded in a seemingly exponential fashion since Georgie went into town (Iraq) blazin' away like some third-rate Hollywood cowboy. Moron.

This is all so depressing.

I sometimes feel like taking m'ladies and hunkering how into a bunker.

By "bunker" I mean Barcelona, however. Or some other city - large or small - along the Spanish Mediterranean coast.

Maybe I should sell my house, pay off some debt, and take the rest of the equity to pay for a modest apartment in the Andalucían coast. I know Carolina would love that.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Most people who read my blog - the regulars - are pretty liberal. Even a Republican friend of mine (Jimbo!) is pretty liberal on lots of topics; he may choose the word "rational," however.

So, for most of us, the FBI's recent admittal to breaking the law regarding privacy concerns should not come as a surprise. There have been thousands of instances where agents used the nefarious National Security Letter, a post-9/11 intelligence-gathering tool, to find out people's credit, telephone conversations, etc. I distinctly remember the FBI stating months ago that they would make sure that this procedure would not be "over-used." Ha! Yeah, right. Well, guess what? They sure over-used it, alright.

Allan, aka "Bury my thoughts in the pixellated thought-hole," posted something interesting today. It's called "Get Grandpa's FBI File." Check it out, especially those of you who have a longer history here in the States than us children of recent immigrants.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Lots of people have complained about the special treatment given to Paris Hilton, thanks to the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department. Before being sent to jail, Paris seemed resigned to the fact that she would have to spend 23 days in a cell:

"I'm really scared but I'm ready to do this. And I hope that I'm an example to other young people."

She presumably meant taking responsibility for your own actions or misdeeds, not actually going to jail.

There was a great September 2000 article in Vanity Fair about the young Hilton sisters, Kathy their goofy misguided mother, and the general sense of Club Kid malaise that permerates their lives. In the story there was a particularly fascinating and ironic scene about "celebrity justice."

"Well, just because you're a celebrity doesn't mean you shouldn't get in trouble if you do something," Paris says.

Nicky laughs.

"Oh, yeah, celebrities think that all the time," Kathy says quickly.

"You keep interrupting me," Paris tells her mother.

There's a long silence.

Nicky laughs again, dryly and somewhat mysteriously.

"There are some people, I guess," continues Paris, "who feel they can get away with anything—"

"This is just so ironic," scoffs Nicky.

Kathy giggles nervously. "We were having this conversation last night," she says.

No one says anything for a while. The silence is deafening.

I say, "Your eyes are so blue, Paris."

"Yeah," says Paris. "They're contacts."

Nicky says, "Mine are real."

I think it's quite telling that, when the judge re-ordered her back in jail after being prematuely released by the Sheriff, Paris shrieked the following:

Friday, June 1, 2007

The link - provided by the Porticus Centre - is from an old audio clip from an episode of Dragnet, c. 1949. The show did not edit out the actual connection of the call - almost two whole minutes of connecting the AT&T/Bell long lines from who-knows-where to Murphy, Idaho.

In this day and age of instantaneous communication, where time space is irrelevant, where one can not only hear the blah-blah chatter of others, but also is able to read various mindless (if innocent enough) inanities like "LOL" or "ur my BFF!!11" or "KOKO BAAATAH!11," we often forget how involved telephony once was.